By Ashley Benkarski
A 91-year-old grandmother will find herself without a home after her new landlord refused to renew her lease that expires mere days after Christmas.
It’s a story of greed that parallels the heartlessness of the Dickensian antagonist Ebenezer Scrooge. Only, for Frances Esenbock and her grandson Josh, the story is real.
News Channel 5’s Alexandra Koehn broke the story back in late November, just days after Thanksgiving, when the grandmother and her grandson discovered a note hung from their doorknob notifying them the management would not be renewing their lease.
Before the public outrage over Esenbock’s ousting, the two were expected to have left the apartment by the end of December, when their lease is up. Now, they have a “buffer” of time, but it’s unknown just how much time they’ve been allowed. And although Frances and Josh are happy to have this window, they’re still ultimately facing down the threat of homelessness in the near future.
Their story diverts from the Christmas classic in that while Scrooge was Bob Cratchit’s miserly wretch of a boss, he was aware of who Cratchit was. But Frances Esenbock is just a set of numbers on a spreadsheet. She maintains she has never seen nor spoken to anyone involved in the management of the property.
Before the new landlords took over, Frances, who lives on a fixed income with her social security payments, was paying about $945 every month in rent. Those same apartments are now listed at up to $1395 online.
Frances said she worked from the time she was 16 all the way up until the age of 78 and has a number of ailments that make it difficult to move around her apartment on her own, let alone pack up and move and her things. The whole ordeal has left her and Josh feeling helpless and hopeless. “I’ve stayed in a sense of worry over her in the first place,” he said. But now, the uncertainty haunts him, so much so that he finds it hard to sleep at night. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to affect his landlord’s nightly slumber.
Asked what they wanted the public to know about their story, Josh said he didn’t want others to think this wouldn’t happen to them. “It could happen to them. With the way they’re doing rent, it could happen to anybody,” Frances added.
Josh said he worries that other residents are being pushed out too. He wants people to know who’s doing it and why, because he doesn’t think his grandmother’s pushout is an anomaly.
This is no work of fiction. No ghosts will appear to appeal to the better senses of Saddlebrook’s team. Our collective Christmas wish must be that, like Scrooge, Esenbock’s landlord will find humanity in his tenants and in himself. It’s in his power to lead by example.
An open letter to Saddlebrook’s landlord can be found at https://bit.ly/LetGrandmaStay. Esenbock is still raising funds to help her with rent and moving costs. Her GoFundMe can be found at https://gofund.me/2ef5beb9.
Writer’s Note: For transparency purposes, I visited Esenbock and her grandson last week to get their story and connect her with tenant advocacy group Tennessee 4 Safe Homes, whom I have volunteered with.
